Are WE the CFs here or neighbours??

[TigersRoll]

3 houses share our driveway (including ours). So you get the 1st house and then ours next to each other and then at the end you get the 3rd house. 3rd house is a big house and has a double driveway (prob enough room for 3 cars anyway). 1st and 2nd house have a tiny section of driveway each, ours been the smallest, barely big enough for one car.

Anyway, DH likes to faff with his car, our driveway is too small to do anything on so during the day when everyone is at work he pulls it into the shared bit. Occasionally he parks his work van on the shared bit but basically, if anything is on the shared bit, 3rd house can’t get to their driveway which is why DH does it when everyone is at work.

This worked well for ages, occasionally woman next door would come home early but would park at the top on the street and walk down. One time all of a sudden she came home at 11am (!) came storming down the driveway carrying a number of bags (she’s a nurse) and muttered something about so much for buying a house with a driveway”. DH was confused as she’s never mentioned it before but he moved his car straight away anyway.
A week or so later we had workmen at the house and they parked on the shared drive. She came home from worked, marched up to the workmen and told them they had to move. This meant packing up tools, ladders and various other stuff before reversing out of the drive just so she could park next to her house. As soon as she was in they moved everything back, low and behold they came out almost immediately and said they had to move as she was going out. They did, she went out and reappeared 15 minutes later again telling the workmen they had to move everything!!! Surely if she knew she was going back out she could have just parked at top of drive where there is tons of room??

Anyway she appears to be making a point of doing this now everytime DH has something on the shared driveway but has never actually spoken to him about it!

Last night we got an angry knock on the door. Her husband was stood there and he looked at our car and said “can you move it” in a really snappy tone. It’s a big car (Land Rover) and as our driveway is so small the arse of it sometimes sticks out into the shared bit. Unfortunately neighbour also has a Land Rover making getting past a bit of a squeeze. DH looked at the car and the space (as it was on our driveway) and the bloke snapped “I’m not scratching my car again trying to get past. Move it”. DH then had to move the car so it was practically touching our garage door. This bloke has always been very pleasant before so it seems so out of character!

AIBU to think his wife has started some kind of vendetta against us and roped him into it or is it our fault??

Op, you need to live according to your circumstances. Buying a house with a small drive, when yiu want to drive a big car and have someplace to tinker is not fair on anyone else when you start to impinge on them. You have to live as per your circumstances,

Our shared drive is like yours, although we have space for several cars. Sometimes we have many guests and more cars than we can handle, or we have workmen in, and we try to never ever block the shared drive.

In the five years I've been here we have done it once, and we informed the impacted neighbours before it happened, told them how long for, and made sure I knew their plans so the workmen could work round it without impacting them. With the cars when we have a party I inform my neighbours and they let them park at their houses. We do the same for them. None of us deliberately negatively impact our neighbours, or takes the piss.

You don't just act like it's all yours, block people off, have the arse of your car hanging out, put stones in to mark boundaries so people scratch their cars, I mean how horrible is that,. It's beyond shitty behaviour.

We don’t have s front garden, it literally is just a small space big enough for a car and that’s it. There is no way to extend it as neighbours houses boundaries on both sides
So your house is literally the width of a Range Rover?

You can change your garage door to a sectional one which doesn't swing out as it opens, then your DH could pull his (massive) car in further

Surely that’s a road? Not a shared driveway. Or if it is a driveway it’s the big house?

He shouldn’t be parking it on their right of access AT ALL.

How long have you been doing this for?

And how often is “OCCASIONALLY “?

Isn’t it illegal to block someone’s access to the public highway? So if OP’s DH or workmen are parked on the shared access road preventing neighbours getting out, I presume they’d be within their rights to call the police.

About 8 years. He does it mostly in the summer months I suppose.

From now on you should park on the small drive, and your DH should park his LR on the road where you usually park.

He should never park the work van on the ACCESS. None of it is "shared parking". It is shared ACCESS i.e. for your neighbours, not for you!

You should relocate the plant pot.

Omg. 8 years? Fuck. Me. 😱😱😱😱😱

I never said we keep 3 cars on the driveway, that would be impossible. I said the land rover is on the driveway and mine is on the street down the bottom of shares access. If he brings his work can home, he OCCASIONALLY parks it on the shared access bit

So basically your DH never inconveniences himself by parking elsewhere to let you park on the drive? And doesn't even park the van up the street?

He sounds charming.

Your husband sounds like an inconsiderate arsehole. He doesn't have any right to park there, and your neighbours sound like they've been incredibly patient until now.

8 years! Sorry OP this is getting funnier with every post, in an incredulous sort of way.

We have a similar set up. Top neighbour (3rd house) got so pissed off with constantly having to tell first house to move their car/visitors car, workmen vehicles that there was a massive argument. It is a huge imposition to have to CONSTANTLY ask people to move. YABU.

You should move to a house that has enough parking for your vehicles.

So your dh is being an arse and neighbour 3 has got to the end of their tether.

Yes, OP, he might occasionally park on the shared access but it still makes him a full time dickhead.

Plus, you were moaning about the workmen having to move.

And about the neighbour being “snappy” when they had to knock.

And about her being home at 11am!

And how she has a vendetta against you because she wants to go home.

Has it absolutely genuinely NEVER occurred to you both in 8 years that this would be fucking irritating beyond belief?

House one have no problem, they can still get in and out of theirs
So what happens if Neighbour 1 starts parking his car on the access to your house?
Will that be OK with you?

You are at fault and you know it.

Or is this just an ingeniously goady thread to get MN frothed up?

Nobody could be this unaware and dense, surely?

Your dh doesn’t sound very pleasant to your neighbour. Piss taker.

You’re are definitely the CFs in this sorry tale. Your husband/you need to start parking your vehicles elsewhere or move to a house with a bigger drive/on street parking. You can’t just block access to someone else’s house whenever you feel like it.

You're at fault, just because they are out you can't use their property, you should have asked 1st, if I were you I'd go round and apologise